|
|
|
|
Abt 1633 - 1719 (~ 86 years)
-
Name |
Isabella AUSTIN |
Born |
Abt 1633 |
Colchester, Essexshire, England |
- Edmund West, comp.. Family Data Collection - Births [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2001.
The Family Data Collection - Births database was created while gathering genealogical data for use in the study of human genetics and disease.
Name: Isabella Austin
Father: Francis Austin
Mother: Isabella Bland
Birth Date: 1633
City: Colchester
County: Essexshire
Country: England
|
Christened |
09 Jun 1633 |
Great Gidding, Huntingdonshire England |
- England and Wales Christening Records 1530-1906, Ancestry.com
|
Gender |
Female |
_UID |
823B65B27A2B46E39112E2FC8EB0FDD331C0 |
Died |
7 Dec 1719 |
Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH |
- Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, Sybil Noyes, Charles Libby and Walter Davis, Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1928-1939,p. 689.
Vital Records of Hampton New Hampshire to the End of the Year 1900, George Freeman Sanborn and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA, 1992, Vol 1, p. 126.
|
Buried |
Pine Grove Cemetery, Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH |
|
Notes |
- Isabella was persecuted for witchcraft. She and Rachel Fuller were accused in the summer of 1680 after the death of a child of John Godfrey. Rachel confessed and accused Isabella. both were committed to prison where they remained until the sitting of the Hampton Court, September 7, 1680. The court ordered that they continue in prison until bond be given for their good behavior of 100 pounds each. John Fuller became a bondsman for his wife, and Isaac Marston and John Redman for Isabella (it is likely that husband Philip was not able to raise the required bond). They were discharged at the Dover court in 1681. She was united with the church on July 2, 1699.
A second person was charged as a witch that summer at Hampton [1680]. Isabella Towle by name, she was a woman in her late forties, married, and the mother of nine children.(107) Her husband, Philip, was first a seaman," and later a "yeoman" of average position in the community. Beyond this the record does not speak. Particularly unfortunate is the lack of any material on the substantive charges against Goodwife Towle. All that survives is a court order, from September 1680, that "Rachel Fuller and Isabel Towle, being apprehended and committed upon suspicion of witchcraft . . . still continue in prison till bond be given for their good behavior of £100 apiece, during the Court's pleasure. Both defendants were discharged in the following year.
(107) This woman was born Isabella Austin, dau. of Francis and Isabella [Bland] Austin, in about the year 1633. Her father, an early resident of Hampton, died in 1642, and her mother was remarried thereafter to Thomas Leavitt. The Bland connection, on the mother's side, was a distinguished one: "Mr." John Bland was an early and prominent settler of Martha's Vineyard. Moreover, Thomas Leavitt was a man of considerable stature within Hampton itself. Isabella Austin married Philip Towle November 19, 1657. Towle's origins are not known, though local tradition makes him out an Irishman. He arrived in Hampton just a short while before his marriage. Philip and Isabella [Austin] Towle had children: Philip (born 1659), Caleb (born 1661, killed by Indians 1677), Joshua (born 1663), Mary (born 1665), Joseph and Benjamin (twins, born 1669). Francis (born 1672), John (born 1674), Caleb (born 1678). Philip Towle died in 1696, aged about eighty; his widow died in 1719. See Noyes, et al., Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, 68-69, 95-96, 425, 689; and the Town Book of Hampton, passim.
The details of Isabella's ordeal are compelling as related in JOSEPH DOW'S HISTORY OF HAMPTON [NH]
Chapter 3 -- Part 23 MORE WITCHES
In July, 1680, a little child of John Godfrey died, and the old cry of witchcraft was raised again. An inquest was held, with twelve solid men of Hampton for jurors, and a verdict rendered: "We find grounds of suspicion that the said child was murdered by witchcraft."
Godfrey's wife and daughter, Sarah, deposed that Rachel Fuller came in with her face daubed with molasses, and sat down by Goody Godfrey, who had a sick child in her lap, and took his hand; when the mother, in fear, drew the hand away and wrapped it in her apron. Then Rachel Fuller "turned her about and smote the back of her hands together sundry times and spat in the fire." Then she strewed herbs on the hearth and sat down again and said: "Woman, the child will be well;" and then went out, beat herself thrice with her arms, as men do in winter, to heat their hands, picked something off the ground, and went home. The next day, the children told their mother that Goody Fuller had said if they did lay sweet bays under the threshold, it would keep a witch from coming in. So they laid bays under the threshold of the back door all the way, and half way of the breadth of the fore door; and soon after, Rachel Fuller came about to the fore door, though she had always formerly come in at the back door, which is next her house; and she crowded in on that side where the bays lay not, and rubbed her back against the post so that she rubbed off her hat, and sat down and made ugly faces and nestled about and would have looked on the child, but not being allowed to do so, went out as she had come in, after having looked under the door where the bays lay; and she had not been in the house since.
John Godrey, Nathaniel Smith and Hezron Leavitt made depositions, equally damaging.
Elizabeth Denham (wife of Alexander), deposed that Rachel Fuller told her "Witches did so go abroad at night, they did lay their husbands and children asleep;" and she said there were eight women and two men in the town, who were witches and wizards.
The men's names were not given, but the women Goody Fuller reckoned as witches were: Eunice Cole, Benjamin Evans' wife and two (?) daughters, Grace (Swaine) Boulter, Mary (Boulter) Prescott, Isabella (Austin) Towle, "and one that is now dead. " Goody Towle, was, in fact, arraigned about the same time, on a different charge, and both she and Rachel Fuller were committed to prison till the sitting of the Hampton Court, September 7. Then, "The Court having heard ye case of Rachel Fuller and Isabel Towle being apprehended and committed upon suspition of witchcraft doe ordr yt they still continue in prisson till bond be given for their good behavior of £100 a piece during the Courts pleasure."
John Fuller became bondsman for his wife; and Isaac Marston and John Redman, for Goody Towle. They were discharged at the Dover Court the next year.
It brings the perils of that time nearer home to recall the fact that she was at one time the victim of the persecution of witchcraft. Both she and a friend were at first accused and the friend,incidently hoping to gain immunity, confessed and put the blame on Isabella Towle. They were both arrested and placed in prison, remaining there from the summer til the 7th of September, when Hampton Court heard their case and released them on bail of one hundred pounds each, and finally, in the following year, discharged the case.
Maine: A History. The American Historical Society. New York. 191
Entertaining Satan:Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England
By John Putnam Demos
Oxford University Press - 1982Chapter 10
http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/HAMPTON/biog/goodydemos.htm [1]
|
Person ID |
I6862 |
Master File |
Last Modified |
20 Jul 2013 |
Father |
Francis AUSTIN, b. Abt 1607, England , d. Bef 13 Jul 1642, Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH (Age ~ 35 years) |
Mother |
Isabella BLAND, b. Abt 1612, England , d. 19 Feb 1699, Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH (Age ~ 87 years) |
Married |
2 Oct 1632 |
Colchester, Essex, England |
- Philip Towle, Hampton, New Hampshire: His English origins and Some American Descendants, William Haslet Jones, Heritage Books, Inc., Bowie MD, 1995,p. 65.
Church: Probably St. Mary, the Virgin, Colchester, Essexshire, England
|
Family ID |
F4865 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
Family |
Philip TOWLE, b. Abt 1616, Crediton, Devonshire, England , d. 11 Dec 1696, Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH (Age ~ 80 years) |
Married |
19 Nov 1657 |
Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH |
- Source: Yates Publishing. U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.
Name: Philip Towle
Gender: Male
Birth Year: 1616
Spouse Name: Isabella Austin
Spouse Birth Year: 1633
Marriage Year: 1657
Number Pages: 1
Source: New England Marriages Prior to 1700, Clarence Almon Torrey, Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, 1985; Reprinted 1997, page 749.
Source: Vital Records of Hampton New Hampshire to the End of the Year 1900,George Freeman Sanborn and Melinde Lutz Sanborn, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA, 1992, Vol 1, p. 73.
Source: Philip Towle, Hampton, New Hampshire His English Origins and Some American Descendants, William H. Jones, Heritage Books, Inc., p.123: "Philip Towle married, Nov. 19, 1657, Isabella, daughter of Francis and Isabella (Bland) Austin of Colchester, England, and Hampton, NH, and granddaughter of John and Joanna Bland of Edgartown, England"
|
Children |
| 1. Philip TOWLE, b. 3 May 1659, Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH , d. 17 Jun 1717, Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH (Age 58 years) |
| 2. Caleb TOWLE, b. 17 May 1661, Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH , d. 13 Jun 1677, Hampton, Rockingham Co. NH (Age 16 years) |
| 3. Joshua TOWLE, b. 29 Jun 1663, Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH , d. 25 Sep 1715, Hampton, Rockingham Co., NH (Age 52 years) |
| 4. Mary TOWLE, b. 1665 |
+ | 5. Joseph TOWLE, b. 04 May 1669, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH , d. 02 Sep 1757, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH (Age 88 years) |
| 6. Benjamin TOWLE, b. 04 May 1669, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH , d. 09 May 1759, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH (Age 90 years) |
| 7. Francis TOWLE, b. 01 Aug 1672, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH |
| 8. John TOWLE, b. 23 Jul 1674, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH |
+ | 9. Caleb TOWLE, b. 14 Apr 1678, Hampton, Rockingham Co, NH , d. 20 Sep 1763, Chester, Rockingham Co. NH (Age 85 years) |
|
Last Modified |
26 Dec 2013 |
Family ID |
F4864 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
-
Sources |
- [S46] Entertaining Satan-Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England-, John Putnam Demos, (Oxford University Press ), Chapter 10.
|
|
|
|